Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The pursuit and definition of meaning is an inevitable action of the thinking man. Differentiating meaningful and meaningless entities in life is of fundamental importance if one's decisions and daily manner are going to be anything but insanity. If one is simply acting on instinct, getting up, getting one's food and work finished, that is all fine and well, but it does not satisfy a man's spirit. An intellect dealing in this mode of operation will be lead to question the reason even for instinct and doubt even the trivial meanings in life, inadvertently becoming a nihilist. Therefore the distinction of why good is good and why bad is bad is supreme in the path to life. The path toward life is ultimately what anyone man comes to: the journey to experience the dynamic of life, which is the antithesis of death. This ideological imperative is a result of every soul's longing for understanding, and no soul will live until it does understanding. As a result the quest for life is really a quest for truth, for truth kindles life.

The first principle in defining meaning is to consent that the things of reality have immutable essences that one can deal with, that knowledge is attainable objectively. The essence of principles and ideas is not subjective but certain, and certain outside of human influence. However, humans may still observe them and know of them, but there essence is what it is regardless of a human's true or false understanding of it. Therefore a man must first realize that ideas can be know, and the 'truth' of an idea is contingent upon the accuracy of the perception of the idea to the essence which the idea is. Unfortunately human recognition will also be flawed just as stating the word 'blue' never really gets to what the word blue is trying to describe, but, for the purpose of philosophy the 'approach' to the essential value of things is good enough to move upon.

So, good and bad are different, and can be known as different, objectively, not subjectively. Now, what makes a thing good or bad. At this point a human must neglect to instill his own value system upon a system or situation, because the situation has a nature of its own outside of the human's influence. Many would say, "It is a bad thing to smoke, or a bad thing to steal." One cannot adequately explain this assertion by saying 'smoking leads to ill health, or stealing breaks the law, of even the law of morality. If one uses this argument then why is ill health bad? And what is morality founded in that gives it judgmental significance. The ultimate conclusion of this line of thinking is to say that life is meaningful, or, life is good. One still must conclude why this is so, and one cannot justify this statement philosophically without saying the life is good because life is made by God. The purpose of life is only significant in the context of a Creator that induces significance. According to this meaning/purpose are conditional not on a natural subjectivity but instead by the subjectivity of one who is defined as eternal. God is now, was, and will be. Our subjective decisions are baseless because we are today and will be gone tomorrow. Any 'good' we can do is only good so long as the reality that we are acting in exists. This is an unsatisfying morality because it is inconsistent. If this is the case one can only satisfy the total sum of reality by accepting the idea of a consistent principle, which is God. God is the only foundation upon which life can be established. Without a point of reference everything following will be unfounded and ill-established.

One is forced by necessity to conclude that God exists or at least something consistent in reality must exist for anything to be meaningful in context of the greater idea.

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Thought Provoking Quotes

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."-Buddha"I don't think a sound body makes a soul good by its own virtue; on the contrary, I think a good soul by its own virtue provides a body in the best possible condition."-Socrates: The Republic Book III"It Is the difference between a man who says to us 'You like your vegetables moderately fresh; why not grow your own and have them perfectly fresh?' and a man who says 'Throw away that loaf and try eating bricks and centipedes instead.' "-C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man